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Phyllostachys edulis
Also called Moso Bamboo
Moso bamboo, a giant timber bamboo from China and Taiwan that grows up to about 28 m tall and spreads by underground rhizomes. It is a grass, and the key to growing it is controlling its spread.
Phyllostachys edulis, the mōsō bamboo, or tortoise-shell bamboo, or mao zhu (Chinese: 毛竹; pinyin: máozhú), (Japanese: モウソウチク), (Chinese: 孟宗竹) is a temperate species of giant timber bamboo native to China and Taiwan and naturalised elsewhere, including Japan where it is widely distributed from south of Hokkaido to Kagoshima. The edulis part of the Latin name refers to its edible shoots. This bamboo can reach heights of up to 28 m (92 ft). This particular species of bamboo is the most common species used in the bamboo textile industry of China and other countries, for the production of rayon. Moso is less cold-hardy than many Phyllostachy, surviving at a reduced height down to −15 °C (5 °F).
Compounds isolated from P. edulis include:
Hydroxycinnamic acids
Phyllostachys edulis spreads using both asexual and sexual reproduction. The most common and well known mode for this plant is asexual reproduction. This occurs when the plant sends up new culms from underground rhizomes. The culms grow quickly and can reach a height of 28 m (92 ft) (depending on the age and health of the plant). In mature individuals, the culms in young plants grow taller and wider in diameter as the general plant reaches maturity, but once the individual culm stops growing it will not grow again. P. edulis also flowers and produces seed, and it does so every half century or so, but it has a sporadic flowering nature rather than the synchronous blooming seen in some other bamboo species. The seeds fall from the mature culms in the hundreds of thousands and are quick to germinate. Mice, field rats and other rodents take notice of the bounty of seed, this results in the loss of many of the seeds, but within a few weeks the surviving few seeds would have germinated (see predator satiation).
Golden bamboo · Yellow grove bamboo · Bamboo · Black bamboo · Running giant bamboo · Bamboo
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phyllostachys edulis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
